TORONTO (Reuters) -Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Sunday the federal government will present a budget in the autumn, days after the finance minister had said the new Liberal government will have an economic update later in the year.
Carney’s announcement after he attended Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration at the Vatican came days after Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the new government will table an economic update later in the year, implying it will not present an annual budget in the near term.
“There is not much value in trying to rush through a budget in a very narrow window – three weeks – with a new cabinet,” Carney said at a press conference in Rome.
Carney said it would be too early to have a budget before the NATO summit in June, and before advanced discussions with the United States about their economic partnership. The government is also looking into areas where it can reduce costs and improve productivity of the public sector, he said.
“Defense spending, the economic outlook, including the tariff relationship with the United States, and the (government) efficiency… all of those coming together, we will have a much more comprehensive, effective, ambitious, prudent budget in the fall,” he said.
Champagne, in a post on X late on Saturday, said 70% of tariffs put in place to retaliate against those from U.S. are still in place.
The post came in response to opposition Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre saying Carney “quietly dropped retaliatory tariffs to ‘nearly zero’ without telling anyone.”
Carney was among many dignitaries attending the inaugural mass of newly elected Pope Leo on Sunday at the Vatican, where he also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von de Leyen ahead of the G7 summit in Canada in June.
(Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Toronto; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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